Amberville

by Tim Davys

  Snake jumped down from the steering wheel. From the glove compartment he took out a pale-yellow notebook; he’d bought the surplus stock down at the stationery store. The cover was tattered and worn, but there was nothing wrong with the paper inside. He grasped the pencil with his tail and quickly wrote:

  a horseshoe, a sickle

  a metaphoric tickle

  the clever, the obtuse

  continue to seduce

  He lifted the point from the page and looked down at what he’d written. As usual he was seized by a kind of dizziness. It was so ingenious, so amazingly beautiful, that he scarcely dared believe that he himself had thought of it.

  Perhaps he hadn’t?

  And deep inside in his cold-blooded heart a faint hope was awakened to life. It was a feeling he hadn’t felt in almost twenty years. He knew that the surrounding world was still not ready for Snake Marek’s life’s work. That they wouldn’t understand, that no one could grasp it. No one.

  Except possibly Eric Bear.

  If each and every one of the buildings which lined blood-red Western Avenue between Tourquai and Amberville had been a block in a box of toys, Eric Bear would probably have been able to take them out one by one and place them in the right order all the way from the Star out to the city limits. This was his childhood neighborhood; on the gravel path that ran parallel to Western Avenue on the Amberville side he had jogged every morning during all of secondary school. Unfortunately the familiar environment lulled him into a secure feeling of well-being that made it more and more difficult for him to keep his eyes open when the weather passed midnight. Ever since Nicholas Dove’s gorillas had broken down the door at Uxbridge Street, the adrenaline had been supplied to the bear’s system in the same way as the injection engine on a Volga GTI. Now the direct infusion was cut off and Eric felt how exhausted he was. At this pause in the flood of events and demands, his eyes shut and he felt how his head began to whirl with fatigue. There was a faint aroma of vanilla in the car, and he wondered how that had happened.

  He’d borrowed the cars at work. From his employees. For his own use he had humbly chosen a gray Volga Combi. It was owned by a mouse in the accounting department whose name he still didn’t know, despite the fact that she’d worked at Wolle & Wolle at least as long as he had.

  He leaned his head against the neck rest and at the same time fingered the walkie-talkie lying on the seat beside him. In the shop he had been assured that the frequency which had been installed was unique. There were few walkie-talkies on the market with a comparable range, and thereby you avoided worrying about eavesdropping and interference. It could of course have been sales talk, if it hadn’t been for the price. Eric paid with a strained smile, and realized that there were few—if there was anyone—prepared to lay out a small fortune for a couple of phones.

  He lifted the walkie-talkie, pressed the button on the side, and called the others. “Bear here. Everyone awake? Over.”

  “Snake. Over,” said Snake.

  “Gazelle. Over,” said Gazelle.

  Then it was silent.

  “Crow?” asked Eric at last, but he received no answer. “Crow, press the black button on the side. Over.”

  There was a crackling sound. “Sure thing—damn—Crow here. Over.”

  “We’ll check in again in an hour. Over and out.”

  Eric put down the walkie-talkie on the seat, felt a violent dizziness, a feeling like sitting in the first car on a roller coaster on its way down the first slope, and before he’d reached the bottom he was sleeping soundly.

  Tom-Tom Crow had brought four bags of peanuts and some knitting with him in the car. It was not a coincidence that they’d let him have the only Volga Mini that Eric had borrowed; it was so enjoyable watching the massive crow fold himself into the little car. But there was nothing wrong with the size of the interior, and Tom-Tom was sitting in the front seat, deeply absorbed in his knitting, when the red pickup came driving along South Avenue.

  Tom-Tom saw it from the corner of his eye, but didn’t make note of it. He had just reparked the car to be able to keep better track of the stitches with the help of the streetlights. The knitting project Tom-Tom had embarked on was going to be a navy-blue sweater with a skull pattern in white on the back. The pattern demanded that he concentrate on the purls, and the red pickup drove past just as he was brooding over whether he’d made thirty-two or thirty-three stitches with the white yarn. On the thirty-fifth stitch he would change color.

  There was a delay of a few seconds before the information which nevertheless had passed through his eye and moved on farther into the mysterious windings of the brain registered in his awareness.

  He looked up.

  “But…what the hell…” muttered the crow in surprise.

  CHAPTER 9

  Tom-Tom Crow threw down the knitting on the passenger seat and turned the key in the ignition. The little car coughed and the motor came to life with a kind of low buzzing. Without a glance over his shoulders or any warning signals, Tom-Tom swung out from the parking place, took a proper grip on the gas pedal with the claws of his feet, and pressed it to the floor. The various Volga models all went roughly the same speed—even if the GTI reached its top velocity more quickly than the others—and soon the crow had the situation under control. In contrast to most of the others, the red pickup kept to the speed limit on South Avenue.

  Tom-Tom was a good driver. For several years, before he started working in the sewing notions department at Grand Divino, he had driven one of the city’s massive buses, route 3 from Rosdahl in Lanceheim to Parc Clemeaux in Tourquai. He was used to city traffic, comfortable behind the wheel.

  Without letting the red pickup out of his sight, he found the walkie-talkie under the knitting on the passenger seat. He picked up the apparatus, conveyed it to his beak, and pressed the black button.

  “Contact,” he said, as they’d agreed upon.

  He released the button and waited for a reply, but nothing was heard. Then he pressed the button again.

  “Driving southward,” he said.

  This time when he let go of the black button, there was a tremendous commotion in the walkie-talkie’s speaker. Three animals who were screaming, each one in his own way, congratulations and admonitions, advice and warnings.

  The red pickup turned off the main highway and drove into Amberville. Tom-Tom turned off the walkie-talkie, set it on the seat next to him and devoted all his concentration to driving. On the side streets it would not be as easy to follow without being noticed.

  Amberville was not a part of the city that Tom-Tom Crow knew especially well. Raised in Lanceheim, it was true he had worked at Casino Monokowski for many years, but during that time he had hardly left the casino. On the few occasions when the personnel had gone out and partied, they had chosen clubs up in Tourquai, where there wasn’t the risk of running into their own guests.

  Immediately after the exit from South Avenue, the pickup turned left, onto a street whose creamy-white luster even the night couldn’t conceal. Uncertain as to exactly where he was, Tom-Tom didn’t intend to take a chance. At the risk of being discovered, he followed, as fast as he could, only to find an empty, sleepy cross-street with apartment houses lying desolately before him.

  The red pickup was gone.

  Eric drove as fast as he could.

  “Tom-Tom,” he called. “Position?”

  The walkie-talkie was mute. Eric reduced his speed somewhat. He was on his way down toward the golden Star, the roundabout where the four avenues ran together.

  “You have to help out,” he asked the snake and the gazelle in the walkie-talkie. “We’ll meet in ten minutes at the starting point. Come.”

  The “starting point” was the massive stairway up to Sagrada Bastante at the east corner of the Star, and exactly ten minutes later Sam and Snake came walking and winding, respectively, to meet Eric. The Star was illuminated at night; the golden roundabout and the small park in the middle glistened and glowed
even stronger than during the day.

  “There’s only one button to push in,” hissed Snake, creeping a few steps up in order to be at the same level as the others, “and that stupid crow doesn’t even get that.”

  “Old man, perhaps it’s not a good idea to get surly and pout just now,” said the gazelle, immediately coming to Tom-Tom’s defense.

  Eric brushed aside their squabbling.

  “We have to do this more methodically,” he said. “I can’t manage this by myself. If I drive east to west, and you north to south along different streets, we ought to be able to catch sight of him at last.”

  “Darling, there’s nothing that says he’s still in Amberville,” Sam said.

  “There’s nothing that says he’s driven away from there,” said Eric.

  “That’s the problem with fools,” hissed Snake. “They’re hard to understand.”

  “The crow saw the pickup,” reminded the bear. “We have to try to find him. What’s the alternative? Stand here and chat?”

  It was three skeptical companions who departed from the Star in their respective Volgas to try to crisscross Amberville like moles in pursuit of the red pickup.

  Tom-Tom Crow was certain that the Chauffeurs must have noticed him by this time.

  For every kilometer he continued, he marveled at the fact that they didn’t stop and wave him over to the side. He could not recall if he had ever been so afraid.

  If the Chauffeurs waved you to the side, then your life was over.

  After having lost the pickup down in Amberville, he’d driven around the nearby neighborhoods without a plan. All the buildings looked alike, with their black tile roofs and small stairways up to the outside doors. He turned left and right and left again; in the darkness, all the subtleties of blue and green looked alike.

  And then, suddenly, after yet another right turn, there it stood: the red pickup. And for the first time Tom-Tom saw a living Chauffeur. The Chauffeur was wearing a gray mantle which completely covered his body. His face was concealed by a large hood. He was carefully leading an older parrot out of one of the buildings. As they came down the steps, the glow of the streetlight fell such that Tom-Tom was able to see that the Chauffeur was nonetheless a stuffed animal.

  It was a wolf.

  Perhaps the wolf didn’t appear particularly fear-inducing, but the circumstances caused a cold shiver of terror to pass down the crow’s back. The Chauffeur and the old parrot got into the pickup, which immediately drove away, and Tom-Tom—who had still not put the brakes on during these ominous seconds—continued straight ahead, after them.

  As though in a trance, the crow followed the red pickup onto South Avenue and farther out of the city. Tom-Tom had never been outside the city limits. He turned off the headlights and continued in the darkness. The red rear lights on the pickup in front of him were soon the only thing he saw.

  They drove deeper and deeper into the dense forest. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of trees were dimly seen in the darkness to the sides of the narrow road. After half an hour they arrived at an enormous, hangar-like structure standing dark and deserted in the middle of nowhere. The red pickup stopped there.

  Tom-Tom pressed the brake pedal to the floor, and without turning off the engine saw the door on the passenger side of the pickup open and the old parrot got out.

  Quickly and simply the Chauffeurs then turned around in order to drive back.

  The road was so narrow there was scarcely room for two cars to meet, and the crow didn’t know what he should do. He couldn’t reveal himself. In pure panic he threw the car into reverse. He stepped on the gas and turned right into the forest. That the little car inserted itself between two tree trunks instead of crashing against them was pure chance. Only ten seconds later the red pickup passed, and Tom-Tom waited half a minute before he returned up onto the road and followed the distant rear lights back toward the city.

  He was not interested in what the Chauffeurs did with worn-out animals like the old parrot. Tom-Tom’s mission was to find out where the Chauffeurs themselves hung out. And it was obviously not in the forest.

  Sam and Snake drove around Amberville for almost an hour before they gave up.

  “The crow went the wrong way, and he’s struggling to find his way back,” said Snake into the walkie-talkie. “Or else he’s still wondering how the walkie-talkie works.”

  “Whatever,” replied Sam. “I’m going home and sleep now, old man.”

  Snake kept him company, and they turned both of their cars and drove back toward Yok. But Eric could not give up.

  The bear continued untiringly, driving from east to west and from west to east through the dark streets. However deeply this part of the city was sleeping, it was pure chance that no one called the police; seeing the same car drive back and forth during the darkest hours of the night ought to have aroused suspicion.

  Finally the walkie-talkie crackled to life.

  Eric slammed on the brakes in pure terror.

  “Hello? Come.”

  “It’s me,” Tom-Tom’s voice was heard. “I have contact. Come.”

  Holy Magnus, thought Eric to himself. It had been more than two hours since the crow had been in touch. “Where? Come.”

  “In Yok. Come.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  Eric turned east at the next intersection and drove quickly through the empty streets. Driving was something he’d devoted all too little time to in his life. He was an unaccustomed driver, but each time he sat behind the wheel he was filled with a kind of childish joy. The adrenaline again streamed out into his body and there was no trace of the tired resignation he’d felt previously.

  “Passing South Avenue. Come,” he let Tom-Tom know.

  Only a few blocks into south Yok, however, Eric’s frustration increased anew. The rectilinear streets in Amberville, where the cars stood neatly parked along the sidewalks and made the streets easily navigable, were replaced by a labyrinthine muddle where a steady stream of obstacles forced him to take detours. The walkie-talkie lay silent on the seat beside him; he didn’t want to use it unnecessarily and was quite certain besides that the crow would not be able to help. Tom-Tom didn’t know these neighborhoods either.

  Eric swore and sweated. He backed up and turned. Accelerated and jammed on the brakes. And after ten minutes he no longer had any idea where he was.

  The Chauffeurs were about to fool Tom-Tom in the end.

  After a great deal of back-and-forth on their way through Yok, the crow lost sight of them now and then in his fear of coming too close. He hesitated before he turned around the street corners, and at the last corner he hesitated longer than usual. Then he screwed up his courage, put the car in first and arrived just in time to see the pickup driving toward a building with a speckled-gray brick wall.

  But the pickup didn’t slow down. Instead the wall opened, closing itself around the pickup again so quickly that Tom-Tom felt uncertain for a moment about what he’d actually seen.

  He slammed on the brakes.

  The building whose wall was a disguised garage door was not particularly large: three stories high, ten meters across, with no windows on the ground floor. Which, on the other hand, was not unusual in Yok. There was no door, either, but Tom-Tom suspected that there was one on the other side. On the façade was an unlit neon sign: “Hotel Esplanade.”

  “They’ve driven down into some infernal garage,” Tom-Tom reported on the walkie-talkie. “I believe we’re here.”

  “Where? Come,” asked Eric.

  “Don’t really know,” said Tom-Tom, “but I’m checking.”

  Eric turned onto the sidewalk and waited impatiently while the walkie-talkie crackled. Then the crow was heard again: “I’ll be damned,” said Tom-Tom. He sounded surprised. “They’re hanging out a few blocks from where we’re staying.”

  “Where we’re staying? Come,” Eric repeated stupidly.

  “I flipping believe you can see the Chauffeurs from Sam’s apartment,” said
the crow.

  TEDDY BEAR, 2

  One evening I awakened with a jolt.

  I was in the eighth grade and stood with one paw in childhood and the other in early maturity. I slept soundly at night and had good reason to do so.

  My heart was pure.

  Eric and I were still living in our boys’ room highest up in the house on flame-yellow Hillville Road. The staircase leading down to the hall passed by Mother and Father’s bedroom. It was old, creaking and squeaking when you walked on the steps. I thought it was the sound of footsteps on the staircase that caused me to awaken. In a fog I got up on my elbows. Then I saw.

  Someone was on his way out through the window.

  A figure crawling out of the room was outlined against the dark night sky outside, palely illuminated by the stars. I let out a sigh of despair. It was so loud that the figure in the window opening stopped dead in his tracks.

  “It’s only me,” hissed Eric.

  A few seconds passed before I realized that it was my twin brother who was in the window, and not in his bed.

  “Go back to sleep,” he hissed.

  He’s running away, I recall thinking.

  The phrase “running away” came to me so immediately that I didn’t even make note of it. Eric and I had reached puberty’s subversive jumble of emotions. We were living in the midst of our childhood, among well-worn children’s books, model airplanes, and soccer balls. Opening the window and fleeing seemed equally cowardly and enticing to me.

  The evening breeze caressed my brow, our thin curtain danced before the open window and from somewhere outside a faint aroma of grilled meat reached me.